Alaska Historic Canneries Initiative (2016)
Not a book, but of interest to anyone wanting to know more about Alaska’s historic canneries and the people who worked there. This video from 360 North is an hour long overview of the Alaska Historic Canneries Initiative featuring Bob King, Anjuli Grantham and Katie Ringsmuth.
King was the news director at KDLG in Dillingham for many years and is now a historian for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Grantham runs an Alaska historical blog and is the driving force behind the Canneries history project. Katie Ringsmuth spent many summers at South Naknek’s APA cannery (most recently Trident South Naknek) where her dad was manager. Ringsmuth is a history professor at University of Alaska.
I am sure I’m not alone in wondering about the history of the abandoned and working canneries we fishers pass on our trips to Naknek, Egegik, Nushagak and Ugashik. I learned a lot from the video; both about the physical buildings and employee culture. King notes the poundage some skippers of the sailing fleet delivered with only two people on board and without hydraulics of any kind. That those totals matched or exceeded present catches was humbling to say the least. Sadly given the number of canneries over 100 years old, only two are on the national register of historical places, something the Canneries Initiative hopes to rectify.
